Ever wondered what the impact of electric vehicle is so far? Well, wait no longer. An infograph recently released from vroomvroomvroom.ca shows some interesting numbers.

In 2012, 62,400 electric vehicles were sold in the US, only 0.45% of cars sold. In 2011, 18,000 EV units left US auto dealer lots. Currently, the Obama Administration is targeting 1 million EVs on the road by 2015. So why haven’t more consumers invested in EVs?

One factor is cost.

In 2011, $28,771 was the average price of a conventional car. Meanwhile, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV costs around $30,000. While costs of EVs remain higher than conventional vehicles, lower li-ion battery prices (from $600 kWh now to $160 kWh by 2025) could help in driving EV costs down.

Add Tesla’s Elon Musk’s suggestion at a TED Talk earlier this year — that when newer technology is introduced it takes around three business cycles before a product can become “a compelling mass product” for customers — gives further market potential for EVs.

The question is, even if EVs plummeted in price, would it be enough? Would it be enough to dramatically cut down global carbon emissions?

While EVs impact on carbon emissions could be minimal, given the rising middle class in developing countries, don’t underestimate the power EVs will have as emerging market consumers demand more products in the future.

So electric cars can cut emissions from transportation but won’t magically save us if people keep building coal plants? Not exactly news, but okay.

Me

Not a very well put together discussion on EV’s from anyway you look at it. There are multiple factors (beside cost only) consumers take into consideration when deciding which vehicle to purchase (other factors completely missing above). There’s also additional reason for gov’ts to promote the adoption of alternative vehicles (beside only CO2 reduction).